Tuesday, May 2, 2017

1981 Revisited

I have decided to do a 1981 Season Replay of sorts, with the 1981 APBA Baseball Card set that I own. The set came to me as a gift about a little over a year ago, from my good friend Kenneth Heard. Kenneth as you APBA Facebook Group fellas may know, writes the witty blog "Love, Life and APBA Baseball". I decided that the cards sat around long enough, and it's time to dive into it.

In Kenneth's 1981 replay, he decided to play all of the 162 games that were scheduled for 1981 -- as you all may know, there was a strike in 1981 -- he did an alternate to that. I decided I will play with two teams only, the Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds, who both won lots of games, but did not win either half's division title; The playoff format that season, featured the first time we ever witnessed Division Series format for the playoffs, it would not return until 1995.

All the results from the Tigers and Reds can effect the results in the standings for the teams effected, meaning for example, let's say the Tigers in real life split with the Royals for the season series, but in my replay Kansas City won 4 more games than the actual season, KC would now have a +4 in the standings, which might move them up considerably for the season standings final results. All other series that don't involve the Tigers & Reds will go down as they did in real life, if the Cubs swept Atlanta in a 3-game series in June, then Cubs swept the Braves in June...

Get it?!

I picked the Detroit Tigers because... well, I am a Tigers fan, so that's a natural choice. The Tigers went 60-49, finishing overall 2 games behind the A.L East's best in the Milwaukee Brewers' 62-47. The Tigers just missed out on both half-races, so me playing the Tigers could shake things up, a few wins here & there. I am still doing the halves, doing the strike, and going to see how everything is different at the end.

I was going to just play the Tigers, but Cincinnati was in the same boat as the Tigers that year, plenty of wins, but falling short in both half-A.L. West Division races to the Los Angeles Dodgers & Houston Astros.

I hope to repeat Kenneth's accomplishments with the Tigers, by getting them to the playoffs, the Tigers ended up winning the A.L. East in a full-season format in his complete 1981 MLB Replay.

With the Tigers/Reds games being played, I may have to nickname this project, "The Sparky Connection"

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